A balanced budget amendment, the case for it and the conservative doubts

Read the text before you read the commentary. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power "To borrow Money on the credit of the United States." Ten words, no ceiling, no condition, no supermajority. The men who wrote that clause in the summer of 1787 had just watched the states and the Confederation drown in paper money and war debt, and still they left the borrowing door unlocked, because they trusted the representatives of a republic to use it with restraint.

Two hundred and thirty-nine years later, we know how that trust has worked out. The question for this post is whether the Founders left us the tool to fix it, and whether conservatives should reach for it.

The question, stated plainly

A balanced budget amendment, or BBA, is a proposed change to the Constitution requiring that federal spending in a year not exceed federal receipts, with exceptions defined in the text. I am going to argue that conservatives should support a well-drafted one, and I am going to give a hearing to the objections, because several of them come from people I respect, and two of them are serious.

Here is the structure. First, how an amendment is made, because the procedure itself is part of the argument. Second, what has already happened: the 1995 vote and the states' experience. Third, the drafting choices that decide whether an amendment is a restraint or a decoration. Fourth, the conservative doubts. Fifth, my verdict.

How the Constitution is amended

Article V is the whole procedure, and it is worth quoting its core: "The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof."

There are two doors. In the first, two thirds of the House and two thirds of the Senate propose the text, and three fourths of the states ratify it. Every amendment now in the Constitution came through that door. In the second, two thirds of the state legislatures apply to Congress, which must call a convention to propose amendments, and again three fourths of the states must ratify. No amendment has ever been proposed by that route, though the threat of it helped produce the Seventeenth Amendment's direct election of senators. I treat that second door at length in A Convention of States Is the Founders' Safety Valve, Weighed Honestly.

Why does that matter here? Because the problem a BBA solves is a Congress that will not restrain itself, and the first door asks that same Congress for a two-thirds vote to restrain itself. George Mason, at the Philadelphia Convention, pressed the point that the amendment process must not rest solely in Congress, since Congress might be the source of the abuse. The convention route exists precisely for that case. It is the Founders' own answer to the objection that the fox cannot be asked to guard the henhouse.

What has already been tried

The 1995 vote

In January 1995 the House of Representatives passed a balanced budget amendment, 300 to 132, as part of the Contract with America agenda. On March 2, 1995 the Senate voted 65 to 35 in favor. The amendment needed two thirds, or 67 votes. It fell one vote short. A single senator's switch would have sent the amendment to the states. Whatever you think of the policy, that is as close as the country has ever come, and the reasons given for the failure are worth studying. Opponents argued, among other things, that the amendment would require either deep cuts to Social Security or a tax increase, and that Congress should not write economic policy into the Constitution.

The states

Nearly every state has a balanced budget requirement of some kind in its constitution or statutes, and the states are a laboratory worth visiting. The requirements differ. Some bind only the governor's proposed budget, some bind the legislature's enacted budget, and some bind the actual year-end result. Some are strong and some are decorative. State experience teaches two lessons at once. First, an enforceable requirement forces a real discipline: states cannot print money, and when the revenue falls, the legislature must cut or tax. Second, legislatures are creative. They shift obligations off budget, delay payments, borrow through separate authorities, and underfund pension promises. A rule is a challenge to a lawyer.

I would add a third lesson, which is that the states are not at the national level. A state faces a bond market that will refuse it credit. The federal government issues the world's reserve asset and faces no comparable discipline, which is exactly why the argument for a constitutional rule is stronger at the federal level than at the state level.

The case for it

Let me number it.

One. The debt is a structural problem, not an accident. The total public debt was $40.56 trillion on November 5, 2026, against $38.05 trillion on November 4, 2025, according to the Treasury's Debt to the Penny. Subtract: 40.56 minus 38.05 is 2.51, so the debt grew by about $2.51 trillion in twelve months, roughly 6.6 percent. That is not a surprise, it is a pattern, and I walked through the history of statutes that were supposed to prevent it in From Gramm-Rudman to PAYGO, a timeline of fiscal rules that bent.

Two. Statutes fail because the next Congress can repeal them. A constitutional amendment is the only fiscal rule that a majority of the House and Senate cannot waive when it becomes inconvenient. That is the whole point of putting something in the Constitution: Madison's Federalist No. 10 is about how factions use the legislative majority to serve a part rather than the whole, and a deficit is a way for the present majority to spend the future's money. The future has no vote.

Three. The beneficiaries of borrowing are concentrated and the costs are diffuse. A senator who brings home a project is thanked in the district. The interest bill is paid by everyone, years later, and nobody can attribute any part of it to that senator. This is the classic problem of public choice, and the classic remedy is a rule that applies to everyone at once, so that no one has to be the first to say no.

Four. Moral claims. A government that borrows to pay for current consumption is taxing people who cannot yet vote, and some who have not yet been born. Jefferson wrote privately in 1798, in a letter to John Taylor, that he wished for an additional article taking from the federal government the power of borrowing. It was a private letter, not a public campaign, and his views on public debt shifted over the years, but the worry that one generation should not bind another to its debts is not a modern invention.

The drafting choices that decide everything

An amendment is only as good as its text. A bad one could be worse than nothing. Here are the choices a drafter must make.

Supermajority to borrow

The most common design keeps the principle that outlays may not exceed receipts, but permits deficit spending if three fifths of each chamber vote for it. The three-fifths rule matters because it flips the default. At present a bare majority can borrow, and borrowing is easy. Under the amendment, a minority of 41 senators could block a borrowing bill. Critics say that gives a minority a hostage. Supporters say that is the intended effect: borrowing becomes a decision, not a drift.

A limit on taxes

Another design pairs the balanced budget with a cap on federal revenue as a share of the economy, or a requirement that tax increases pass by a supermajority. The goal is to ensure that balance is achieved by restraining spending and not by raising taxes. Conservatives who favor that provision say that otherwise the amendment would just be a tax-increase machine. Those who oppose it say that a tax cap would tie the hands of a future Congress in a real crisis and make the Constitution a vehicle for one party's tax policy. That is a fair debate, and I come down on the side of a supermajority requirement for new taxes as the lighter version.

The war and emergency exception

Every serious draft allows a waiver in wartime or in a declared emergency, usually requiring a supermajority or a specific declaration of war. The Founders knew that nations at war borrow, and Hamilton's 1790 argument in his Report on Public Credit was that public debt, honestly serviced, can be an instrument of national strength (see Hamilton's 1790 Report on Public Credit and what honest borrowing requires). The danger is the definition of "emergency." A rule with an emergency door can be walked through by any Congress willing to call a Tuesday an emergency. A good text names the trigger, requires a recorded vote, and sets a time limit.

Receipts or a percentage of GDP

Does the amendment balance the budget each year, or over the business cycle? A strict annual rule would force spending cuts or tax increases in a recession, exactly when the economy is weakest. A rule that looks at outlays as a share of the economy is more flexible but opens the door to accounting games about what counts as "receipts." There is no perfect answer, and the drafters have to pick a risk.

The conservative doubts

This is the section where I have to be fair, because the conservative case against a BBA is serious, and I do not want to pretend it is not.

Doubt one: the courts would write budgets

A constitutional command to balance the budget would be justiciable, or at least would be argued to be. Suppose a taxpayer sues, claiming that a spending bill violates the amendment. Who decides whether the budget is balanced, based on whose estimates? A judge who rules that the government cannot spend is, in effect, a judge who tells the legislature what to appropriate. Many conservatives who have spent their lives arguing that judges should not legislate are uneasy about a text that invites judges to do exactly that. Courts have long treated many budget disputes as political questions they decline to decide.

Answer: drafters can address this directly, by providing that enforcement lies with Congress, or that the amendment is not judicially enforceable in the ordinary way, or that standing is limited. That, however, raises the second objection, which is that an unenforceable amendment is a decoration. I think the honest answer is that no text eliminates the tension, and that the Constitution is full of provisions, such as the impeachment power and the guarantee clause, that rely on the political branches, not the courts. A BBA need not be perfect to be better than the present rule, which is none.

Doubt two: it ratchets taxes up

The second objection is the weightier one. If the Constitution says the budget must balance, and the politically easy way to balance is to raise revenue, then the amendment may become a mandate for tax increases. Defenders of the status quo ante on the left would be glad to have it. A balanced budget at 25 percent of GDP is a far different country than a balanced budget at 17 percent. Some conservative economists, including some who share the goal, have therefore opposed amendments that do not also limit taxes.

Answer: this is a drafting problem, and the answer is the supermajority for revenue increases or a spending limit tied to a share of the economy. It is also a political one. If conservatives refuse any BBA that does not meet their preferred text, they will never get one, and the debt will grow anyway. The correct response to a risk is to draft against it, not to abandon the project.

Doubt three: it is unnecessary, because Congress has the power already

The third objection is that nothing in the Constitution stops Congress from balancing the budget tomorrow. It lacks will, not authority. This is true. It is also true that Congress lacked the will in 1985, 1990, 1997, 2010 and 2011. The amendment is the only tool that changes the incentives, not just the intentions.

Doubt four: a convention could run away

For those who prefer the state route, the fear is that a convention could propose changes far beyond the stated topic. Article V's three-fourths ratification requirement is the safeguard, since any proposal needs 38 states, and most careful scholars of the convention route believe a runaway convention cannot become law without that approval. I think the fear is overstated, but it is genuine, and it is one reason the amendment route through Congress is the cleaner one.

The rebuttal I would give a skeptic

Suppose a skeptical friend says: "You are asking people to put economic policy in the Constitution. The Founders did not." Let me answer in three points.

First, the Founders did put economic structure in the Constitution. They gave Congress, not the President, the power of the purse. They forbade states from issuing paper money and impairing contracts. They provided that "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law," in Article I, Section 9, and they required that a regular statement of receipts and expenditures be published. The Constitution is, in part, a fiscal document.

Second, the Fourteenth Amendment's Section 4 says that "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned." The Constitution already speaks about debt. It simply speaks only about its validity, not its size.

Third, the Founders also gave the people the amendment power so that later generations could correct what experience revealed. The experience since 1985 is the evidence. A rule that Congress can break is not a rule. A rule that the Constitution imposes is the only kind the record suggests a Congress will respect.

My verdict

I support a balanced budget amendment, with the following drafting priorities. A three-fifths requirement to borrow, with a recorded vote. A limit on revenue or a supermajority for tax increases, so that balance comes from restraint. A narrow, named exception for declared war, with a sunset. And a clear assignment of enforcement so that judges are not asked to write budgets. A text with those elements answers three of the four doubts, and the fourth, the risk of a runaway convention, is handled by choosing the congressional route.

I do not pretend that this solves the problem alone. Rules are thermometers, and the will is the thermostat. But the amendment has one property no statute has: it changes what a majority is permitted to do. That is the entire purpose of a constitution. And the arithmetic of the interest bill is reason enough to insist (see do the arithmetic on $40 trillion and the interest bill it carries).

The case in brief

1. Article V provides two doors to an amendment, and the state-convention door exists because Congress may be the source of the abuse.
2. In 1995 the Senate voted 65 to 35 for a balanced budget amendment, one vote short of the 67 needed, and state experience shows both the discipline and the evasions of such rules.
3. The amendment's strength is that no later majority can waive it by simple vote, and its design choices (three-fifths to borrow, a tax limit or revenue supermajority, a narrow war exception) decide whether it restrains or decorates.
4. The conservative doubts, that courts would write budgets and that taxes would ratchet up, are serious but are drafting problems, and refusing every imperfect text guarantees the status quo.
5. The record of statutes since 1985 is the argument for a constitutional rule.

What you can do: read Article V in full at the Constitution page, then look up whether your state legislature has ever voted on an application for a convention to propose a balanced budget amendment, and call your state legislator's office to ask where they stand.